As soon as the flower was well and truly dead, Theo felt something pour out of it and into his body. An energy wholly unlike anything he had felt so far through his mana sense. It seemed to seep into him and pool at the center of his body. After a short moment, it shifted to match his own personal mana before spreading throughout his body. It was a minuscule amount, but like before when he had been back in his home, the energy made him feel more real.

  [Tier 0 -> Tier 1]

  Theo read the words hovering in his vision.

  The moment he had fully processed the words he crossed over a threshold. The density of the energy inside of him and the energy in the air around him doubled. He felt the presence of something greater. An intelligence focused on him with crushing weight.

  He gasped as he felt the mana around him intensify, driving him to his knees as he yet again became more. He retched, black tar leaving his mouth to splatter on the ground in front of him. His skin flushed, feverish as sweat poured from his body. The burning in his face grew to unbearable levels and he tried to scream, only for another splatter of black vomit to land in front of him.

  His first thought was the toxins from the plant were killing him. But even through the pain there was the clarity of his new sense. Instead, all of the foulness inside of him was being pushed from nearly every opening in his body.

  His eyes weeped a brown-red liquid that burned. His nose dripped red and yellow mucus.

  Then nearly as suddenly as it had begun, it stopped. A new vigor flooded into him as the burning in his lung eased. The aches and pains from his walking and fall changed from a dull ache to a barely noticeable twinge. The pain where his face had been chemically burned was nearly gone and his mind had a stunning clarity to it that he hadn’t felt since he was a kid.

  Sans the nasty gunk that now covered his body and his ruined clothes. Theo felt incredible.

  Almost scared, he rose to his feet once again. The invigoration he felt made him want to run, but resisted the urge.

  His mind flashed through the various stories he had read and he guessed that killing the flower and the energy that had followed had changed him in some qualitative way.

  He just stood there, his body feeling primed and full of energy. He basked in the feeling. He hadn’t felt this healthy practically ever. His breathing came easy, any soreness he had gained from his sedimentary life fading like a bad dream.

  “Whoa…” he spoke out loud, clenching his hand into tight fists. He glanced at his body. “Shit.” He was running out of clothes.

  Thankfully, the nastiness that covered his body wiped away easily. His skin, healthier than it had ever been, practically repulsed the tar as he used his dwindling supply of clean water and one of the towels he had brought along to wipe himself as clean as he could.

  Sadly, he was down to the last of his clothes after he had changed. He had one spare set left in his bag along with his food. But dirty clothes were a small price to pay for how good he felt right now.

  He tested his new strength, but without anything to accurately gauge it, he had to simply acknowledge that he was stronger. His backpack was easier to lift, his makeshift spear felt like a toy in his hands.

  ‘This is incredible.’ All the pain he had suffered and the loss of his home felt well worth the price.

  On top of all of that the clarity of what he had decided to call his mana sense felt even sharper. The wind around him, still stale but with more depth to it. Even stranger though was how where the wind brushed against his skin, he noticed it seemed to take on a livelier tone. The staleness being replaced with a flavor that partially matched the one his body now had.

  He blinked as he remembered his status sheet.

  [Theo Caulder]

  [Tier 1]

  [Affinity: Wind]

  [Skills]

  He checked over the change in it. Noticing the new line about his affinity. He wondered if that was something inborn into him, or if it was due to the environment he had tiered up in. He was bummed that no skills had appeared, but he figured that with time he would eventually get some.

  He glanced at the body of the monster, thinking of the different tropes he knew about. If this was anything like the stories, there might be something useful inside of it. But the smell from here, especially with his now enhanced senses made him reluctant to go digging through it.

  He took a deep breath and forced himself to at least try. Taking a spare kitchen knife from his bag, he used his ruined shirt as a glove as he took the creature apart, trying to see if there was a core or something inside of it.

  It came apart easier than he had expected. He started with the beavers split back, its pelt peeling away with a rancid smell that made him gag. Yellow roots, sickly and barbed, had spread through the creature from the base of the flower’s stalk. They tangled themselves inside of its rib cage in a rootball that circled where Theo guessed the creature’s heart was.

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  Trying not to breathe he gripped the stalk and pulled it free, taking the rootball with it. The wet ripping noise was awful and the smell worse. Theo quickly moved away from the body to let the wind carry the smell away.

  He cut apart the plant's roots, extremely careful not to prick himself on the needle like barbs. His guess had been right and he was rewarded with a small brown marble that the system helpfully identified for him.

  [Wood aspected core]

  Theo grinned, his first real piece of loot. Using handfuls of dirt, he cleaned the small orb as best as he could. Unwilling to waste his water or one of his sports drinks to clean it thoroughly, he stuffed it into the side pocket of his backpack.

  Theo didn’t even bother to glance at the pile of meat that had been the plant’s walking flowerpot. Even if the claws and beak were usable, he had no interest in butchering it. He had gotten what he had hoped for.

  Collecting his spear and bag, he resumed his walk in the direction of the giant tree.

  Theo took his time as he traveled. Now that he knew at least one kind of threat was lurking around, he was more nervous about just walking blindly around. He took the time to peek around trees as he rounded them, or to double check over his shoulder every few moments as his eyes scanned his surroundings.

  It had been maybe an hour, hard for Theo to tell with the constant unchanging grey of the overcast sky above him, when he encountered another monster. It wasn’t the same beaked beaver as before. This time some kind of large bird, reminiscent of a vulture, but clearly unhealthy even beyond what the beaver had been. Its head and neck were twisted together with the stalk of another yellow flower that overrode the movements of its neck with twists that must have broken all of the bones in the creature's neck long ago.

  It was missing a leg and was dragging itself in the same direction Theo was traveling. Its progress was slow, barely a crawling pace. Each movement something that a normal bird would never have made.

  Theo quietly moved up behind the bird, waiting until it had gone under a large branch that would let him avoid direct line of sight to the flower's head. With quick movements he stalked up behind the monster, readying his spear as he leaned over the branch to stab at the spot on its back where the stalk of the flower emerged from.

  His body moved exactly as he wanted it, and even as the flower twisted around to spit at him, his blade punched straight through the center of the stalk. The flower still tried to spit at him, but with its sudden lack of control its twitching sent it reeling back. Its blob of goo flying in an arch way too high to even come close to hitting him.

  Theo let out a small “whoop” of triumph. That had gone as well as it could have, and a few minutes later he had extracted another core. This time a wind aspected one. It was smaller than the beaver’s but he wouldn’t complain. Not that had really had a use for them at the moment, but it satisfied a small part of him.

  The same energy that had come from killing the first flower had also come from the second one. Though this time without the same purging process as before. He wasn’t sure if he felt stronger, but he figured that if he kept this up he was bound to make progress.

  Theo’s journey continued as it had before, slowly making his way towards his goal. He ran into other creatures of various shapes and sizes. None of them had been in good condition. Only one close call with a primate the size of a small dog when it had caught him off guard as it had gotten stuck between two large fallen branches. But its body had been so ruined by the flower’s infestation that Theo had simply run out of range of the flower before getting it to waste all of its ranged attacks with the same method he had done for the very first flower.

  He found himself no longer bored as he moved around the ruined forest. He was actually having fun. There was a clear feeling of progress with every flower he crushed underfoot. That same essence gave him minute levels of strength that became clearly noticeable as he killed his fourth creature. It came as a complete and total surprise to him when a system screen appeared in his vision with his most recent kill.

  [Skill gained: Strike]

  Theo’s eyes widened with surprise as he processed the information. After a moment he tried to pull up a description for the skill, but no amount of mental or verbal commands seemed to bring up anything but the name of the skill itself.

  He felt the skill inside of him, what he would describe as his soul. It was like getting a new limb. With a swipe of his spear Theo used his skill. It didn’t move more quickly. But there was a weight to it much like the same that had come with the magic.

  Even better was he could use it for not just his spear, but his hands. His feet. Anything he could reasonably “strike” with. The one downside was that with each use he felt his personal energy leaving him. His breathing came heavier, his arms ached slightly as if he had exerted himself in a hard workout.

  He wouldn’t be able to use it with every attack he made. But he figured that if he used it well it would turn a crippling blow into something disabling if not outright lethal.

  Seeing such clear progression from his actions filled Theo with excitement. This was what he had daydreamed about, dozens of fantasies flashing through his mind as he wondered what kind of skills were out there and what he might be able to get.

  His best guess as to how he obtained it was through his repeated and well placed attacks against the stalks of the flower. Severing them had instantly “killed” the creatures they were parasitizing. Though he was unsure if they were even alive while under the flower's control. He sure hoped they weren’t, but if they were it did bring him a small amount of comfort knowing he had ended their pain.

  Tired from the testing of his skill, Theo decided to find someplace safe to rest for a while. The system hadn’t given him a time limit, and he knew all it would take was one tired mistake and a flower could blind him at the very least. Not to mention the kind of infection he could get from the rotten claws of the various animals he had killed.

  Eventually he found a secure little nook underneath the trunk of a fallen tree and its stump. Dust had piled onto one side and left him with one small opening he had needed to crouch to get into. The nook itself was relatively clean, only a small layer of dust covered the floor and even though the wind still found its way inside, it wasn’t strong enough to disturb the dust.

  Pulling out a can of baked beans he felt mildly like a cartoon prospector as he pulled the lid off and ate them cold. He had done this before, being too depressed to bother cooking for himself, but he was still tempted to light a fire. The only thing that prevented him from doing so was the vague idea that lighting a fire near a bunch of flammable powder was probably a poor idea.

  Once he was done with his meal, he took careful sips from one of the sugary sports drinks he had stuffed in his bag, saving the last of his water in case he needed to wash off the flower’s spit in the future.

  With his spear held in his hands and pointed at the entrance of his camping spot he tried to not let exhaustion overtake him. He sure as hell didn’t want to sleep. But the cocktail of chemicals in his body from the weed he had smoked earlier and the adrenaline had other ideas, and before he knew it he had drifted off into a dreamless slumber.